Gardening with the birds...

I've been trying to dig part of the border at a time, so as not to end up too stiff. You can see I haven't quote got as far as where the little robin is in the first picture. I am not sure what it was up to, it was peering around and then flapping it's wing. A bit the way some birds to to act as a decoy when a predator is too near their nest. In this case, as the second robin appeared in no time, it was almost as if it was signalling. Surely not, though!

 I love this upward shot - I was lying on the grass waiting for the robin to land in my bowl of compost, but took this while it was perched on the wall above me.

Checking the weed container out for any tasty titbits...

I was honoured to be invited as April Guest Designer for Mami Doodles by Elisa. I love Elisa's style - if I scrapped, I'd like my pages to look like hers. We informally swap ATCs and cards from time to time - I have an ATC with a predecessor of the little Midori girl sitting under my monitor right now.
I am not a big fan of digital images - mostly because they don't seem to work well with watercolours. But I had great fun with the images Elisa sent me - I've liked Asian style images as long as I can remember. As soon as I saw the paper piecing image, I wanted to make a little paper doll you could dress.
There are tabs on her dresses, but then I also used Sailor two-way glue as repositionable glue, so that I could "hang" them in the wardrobe. And although originally I was going to just pop the little girl up on thick foam dots, I realised that she'd be easier to dress if you could remove her altogether, so I used a Basic Grey magnetic snap to attach her to the card.  Then all my ideas of how to make a suitable background were too complicated, so I just used some fancy textured Bazzill and a little cloud of butterflies.
Kimono papers were downloaded from the Canon Creative website, scaling them down. I reckon the whole card could be tied with nice ribbon or else a belly band in more of the chiyogami paper to keep it closed - it would sort of tie in with the little obi.
Apart from the wardrobe and the interchangeable dresses, it doesn't bear a whole load of relationship to my original concept, but I certainly had fun.

What's in Your Kitchen?

I had no problems at all with the SCS photo challenge this week. Well, I shouldn't have! Angie was looking for someone to cover for a couple of weeks, so I set the challenge of showing something from your kitchen. I started adding up all the kitchens I've worked in professionally, and on a volunteer basis for camps - it came to a lot of kitchens.
For my photos I used an old Springerle rolling pin. I am sure we used to have two - this one and a bigger one with red handles. But this is the one that ended up in my possession. When we were little, it did NOT have woodworm, I don't know at what stage that happened to it.

A new Joseph Joseph citrus reamer. I have an electric juicer I use if we are having juice to drink, or if I need more than two or three oranges and lemons squeezed. Sometimes I do rolled-up chicken breast fillets with a fresh mint filling and an orange sauce, I definitely use the electric juicer for that. And then I have little ones suitable for a wedge for pancakes or whatever. And then there's a stainless steel one, which is my regular one. But for half an orange, or lemon, or lime, it's a nuisance to clean, and I thought I'd try out this reamer. I am more than happy with it.

I also took a photo of a slice of the cake I made on Saturday before we went to Farmleigh. We did call on a neighbour to invite her over for some, but she wasn't in...not that we ever have trouble finishing it off ourselves.

We didn't have the same fantastic sunshine today as the last few days, but I was able to get some weeding done, and lovely rich,fresh compost from the compost-maker onto the borders. The little robins were out with me, keeping a close eye out for all the worms.

Everything's a-budding and a-blooming

Another beautiful day of sunshine.
C had training today and got home early, so after a light tea of Summer Tomato Soup with ciabatta, followed by not-so-light rum and raisin icecream we went for a walk in the park.
Summer Tomato Soup
 I often add a bit of balsamic vinegar, and tonight, as the tomatoes are not really the most flavoursome at the moment, I added some sugar too.

Have to get out my tree books to try to identify this one. I thought maybe it was Linden, but I can't find that it flowers before any leaves come out. I spotted it yesterday as we drove past and was sure it was covered in flowers, not leaves.

Where are the pastels...

... when you want them? The SCS photo challenge this week was pastel colours, and I have been looking and looking all week. Someone I know who does a 365 photo journal says who needs desaturation when you have the Irish weather to do it for you, but it was no help to me.
In the end I spotted these paper Cosmos flowers I made a few years back.  They always were pastel, but have probably faded a bit more with time.

This morning was so lovely and bright and sunny that we went for a walk. C was feeling tired and didn't want to drive as far as the Botanic Gardens, or walk as far as along the canal, so we went to Farmleigh. It doesn't open till ten, which gave me time to make a cake before we left.
I am thinking these magnolias might qualify for pastel colours.

But that bright blue sky most definitely doesn't!!

Where Sheep May Safely Graze

This is a card I wanted to post up here as I was so happy with my little sheep. I made it just before we went to my Dad's, for the ODBD Second Anniversary challenges. Being the second anniversary, one of the challenges was to use cotton. I am not a big fan of actually making bullion knots, but I do think you can make so many lovely designs with them that it's worth enduring with it.


Just two bird photos from when we were down in Kerry. Year before last I gave Dad a coconut filled with seeds and suet, and when it was empty he took it down. I think he'd forgotten about it, but when he was worried about leaving the poor birds without any food while he was away for a couple of days, I suggested that fat balls or suet would last longer than leaving just seed. So he found another coconut, and wired them up to his feeder. I just sat on a chair in the garden for about half an hour over the space of the afternoon, and even after weeding out the total duds, I still have over 50 shots I can't bring myself to ditch. I love the ones that show the birds in motion. Really, I should have brought my tripod or seen if Dad had one I could have borrowed. I'll try to edit a couple of the Blue Tit ones - they look so cute tucked right into the shell. But for now, I love the sense of motion with the Great Tits in this one.

And those ever-elusive Coal Tits were not so elusive down there as they are up here.

Showing Off

It's quite funny when the female robin is foraging for her own food at the same time as she makes little chirps to be fed. Then the male comes over with his beak full, and she's gobbling away at her own food. I am so enjoying watching them. I saw this little display on the shed roof this afternoon.

Some welcome light relief after trying to talk my dad through deleting an email on the server that was blocking up his Mac.I can't believe he used to teach programming!!

Colour on a Grey Day

I was thinking that maybe I'd get to upload a few of my action pictures of the birds at my dad's feeders today: it was such a dull, grey wet day that it seemed like a waste of time to have my camera with me in town. Then it was such a rush to get from work to Dublin Castle (where I was meeting C for lunch, as he had the day off today), that there was no time for stopping to take any pictures. But I spotted these buildings just as I got to the Chester Beatty, and as it had stopped raining, almost, when we were leaving after lunch, C said I could have two and a half minutes to take a picture. They look freshly painted, but since the last time I was up that road was in the snowy twilight in January, I could have missed them altogether that evening.
There was fantastic contrast between the dark bark of the cherry trees and the papery white birch bark, but I only had two and a half minutes!!

Happy Easter

Despite the tub they are in having been frozen totally solid back in January, the first of my daffodil buds broke into bloom yesterday, just in time for Easter.
Just as well they are in a tub - it's so windy today that the only way to get a macro shot was to bring the whole tub inside.
Papa Robin is getting better at gathering more worms to fly back to the nest with, he can manage 5 (I think) now, with a bit of pecking around to get them all. He's still nowhere near the puffin - online research tells me they can carry up to 12 sand eels in their beak, but I am sure I read more than that in my bird book, or a photography magazine.

Hot Cross Buns

Most years I don't actually remember to make Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday, although we happy eat them any time of the year.  For quite a few years I used to be cooking for Easter camps, and although I did often make fresh bread-rolls for 80, I never did buns. As you can see, I don't put a cross in mine. These were the last two left from the dozen I made in time for a late breakfast yesterday, and we finished them off with afternoon coffee today. I have to admit that when it came to dinner last night, we decided we didn't really need a big meal, so we passed.

According to my book of festive baking, the association of Hot Cross Buns with Good Friday began only after the Reformation in the 16th century. Before that almost all dough was marked with a cross before it went in the oven, to ward off evil spirits that might stop it rising. After the Reformation this practice was discarded as being "Popish", and was just kept for the day in the Church year when the cross was most significant.
Check out this photo of a little Greek wood-fired oven that we saw in the folk museum in Corfu - it has a cross on it.

Hot Cross Buns makes 12
1/2 pt (1 1/4 cups) milk and water mixed, lukewarm
3/4 oz fresh yeast, one sachet instant yeast
1 lb strong flour
1/2 tsp each salt, mixed spice, cinnamon, grated nutmeg (I like more mixed spice)
2 oz castor sugar (1/4 cup)
2 oz butter (1/2 stick)
2 beaten eggs
6 oz currants or raisins
1 oz finely chopped candied peel
shortcrust pastry if you want to make crosses

Using instant yeast I just knead everything together, adding the raisins near the end. Again with instant yeast I skip on the initial rising in a greased bowl, and just shape them into 12 buns, arrange in a greased roasting tin and leave to rise. The original recipe, calling for fresh yeast has two risings before the shaping. If you want to make crosses, roll the shortcrust pastry out, cut into thin strips and stick on with cold water.
Bake in a pre-heated oven, 400CF, 200C, Gas Mark 7 for about twenty minutes, till browned on top. If you can put a tin of boiling water in the bottom of the oven to make a steamy atmosphere, all the better.
If you like a glaze on the buns - I do, C doesn't - boil  2 oz (1/4 cup) sugar with 2 tblsp water until it's formed a syrup, and brush over the top of the warm buns.

A Walk in the Park

It was so nice and sunny yesterday evening that we went out for a quick walk after dinner. C hadn't gone for his usual lunch-time walk, as he was recovering from a painful visit to the dentist...It was cold, but well worth going out - especially when it's been raining all day so far.

Sunset in a Puddle

Signs of Spring - a sticky chestnut bud ...

... and even a leaf breaking out

Stepping Out Together

C reckons - purely because there were three of them, that these might have been the ducks he's been seeing swimming around in a big puddle beside the road this week.